-The Times of India BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh is staring at a drought-like condition for the second consecutive year if revenue department reports from districts are any indication. Revenue data reaching here from various districts hints that dry conditions may bring water scarcity in many parts of the state from April to June this year. As the state is on the verge of another drought, far-flung areas of more than 40 districts have...

-Frontline Former psephologist Yogendra Yadav, now a member of the political collective Swaraj Abhiyan, recently toured India’s drought-affected districts. He called it a Samvedna Yatra. During the tour, he took note of the agony in rural areas affected by what he calls “one of the worst droughts in independent India” The drought, according to him, has left farmers and the larger rural community in extreme distress, leading to damaging changes in...

-PTI Mumbai: In controversial remarks, BJP MP Gopal Shetty has attributed farmers’ suicides to a “fashion” and “trend” to end lives. The remarks come at a time when Maharashtra is reeling under an agrarian crisis with 124 farmers committing suicide in the state since January. “Not all farmers’ suicides happen due to unemployment and starvation. A fashion is going on. A trend is on,” Shetty, who represents north Mumbai, said after an...

-Hindustan Times Indore (Madhya Pradesh): The contrast could not have been starker. At Hanuwantiya village of Khandwa district, the Madhya Pradesh government is celebrating Jal Mahotsav and developing the biggest water sports destination of the country in the backwaters of Indira Sagar dam. And barely 35-40 km away, farmers in several villages are facing a famine-like situation and staring at crop failure. Most of the farmland in the area has turned brown...

-The Indian Express We have turned our back to the intense food and Drinking Water distress across states India has transformed spectacularly in innumerable ways in the last two decades. One of the least noted changes is in the way the country — governments, the press and people — respond to drought and food scarcities. Back in the late-1980s, many states across India were reeling under back-to-back droughts for three consecutive years, not...